This is the guitar that kicked the bucket. It had been several years since a guitar had surprised me this much, considering the value for the money.

I had never had one of these before, and never thought of buying one either. The closest was an ART500 Custom that I sold around 2013 or 2014.

It all started when a cousin of my wife, the owner of the Epiphone G400 Korina sold not long ago, asked me to do some research on the internet for a guitar. He started playing piano, but having doubts about returning to the guitar or not. Being an Ibanez fan and since this brand rarely let me down, I have concentrated my research on Ibanez, but also Yamaha Pacíficas, just in case. Him being in his 60s, I wanted to propose a simple guitar with fixed bridge and easy to tune, like the Epiphone he had.

About 2 weeks later, I decided to go for this Ibanez; the seller accepted to lower the price due to the neck crack on the back. Finally the crack is just on the finish and the guitar is solid as a rock.

It arrived, I did a quick fret level, and I achieved a very low action that I had never expected : less than 1,5mm at the high E and slightly less than 2,0mm at the middle of the low E string, both at the 22nd fret. To tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I've revised the action on all my Ibanez RG and RGT, because I've noticed I was playing this Darkstone way more than (any of) them. I want to remind you this is a Made in China guitar and the most basic model of the line.

To summarize the following events, my wife's cousin never spoke about guitar since March, and I've decided to put it on sale. But I confess sometimes I feel tempted to keep it. It plays very smoothly and very fast, the electronic doesn't make any noises, and also the ceramic ACH-S humbuckers sound lovely (the neck position particularly sounds very PAF-like), at least through my Zoom G3.

Some of you may be thinking : "-Yeah, right..." Probably I would too, but if it's not everything I've said, I'll refund the buyer completely.

I don't know if all Darkstones are this good, but this one will surprise you, believe me. It's not the prettiest guitar around, but you will fall in love the moment you play it.

Thanks for your visit!

Alex